In his biography, The Story of My Life, Casanova wrote, “I took all the gold I found and played the martingale, doubling my stakes continuously, and I won every day during the remainder of the Carnival.” Casanova’s account is the earliest record we have of this beguiling strategy.

Today, the martingale is not limited to Carnival, it’s a strategy that is becoming a winning favorite across the net. Here’s how it works. You start with a minimum bet, let’s say $1. The contest is usually roulette, blackjack, or any game with 1:1 payouts. Then you simply bet the minimum after every win, and double the bet after every loss (1, 2, 4, and so forth). The martingale is guaranteed to produce a one-unit net profit after a winning bet regardless of the number of losing bets. So if you lose three bets and win two, you’ll have a net profit of $2. Nifty huh? The only problem is that sometimes wins and losses don’t come in affordable small chunks. What happens if you lose seven times in a row? That would be bets of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64…a sum of 127 units…lost. Ouch! So the martingale can be expensive if you hit a bad patch. Remember, there’s no rule that says you won’t lose fifteen consecutive times.

The solution is to limit the progression. Quit if you lose five or six in a row, or at least drop back to the minimum bet. It’s also a good idea to start small. Let’s say your bankroll is $200, then your base bet shouldn’t be more than $5. If you really want to stretch cash, begin with bets of $1 or less. This makes the martingale especially well suited for online play since brick-and-mortar casinos typically don’t take bets lower than $1. Look for sites that have a low minimum bet and a large spread between the minimum and maximum (bet limits are usually posted on an info page with other game rules somewhere accessible from the home page).

So if you start at fifty cents, and you’re willing to take the progression to six steps, then it’s a risk of $31.50 to win fifty cents. Or to put it another way, it’s a bet of $31.50 that you won’t lose six consecutive times. The probability of winning that bet when playing roulette is about 98%.

Basil Nestor is author of The Unofficial Guide to Casino Gambling, The Smarter Bet Guide to Poker, and other comprehensive gambling guides. Got a question? Visit SmarterBet.com and drop him a line.

(c) copyright 2004 Basil Nestor

© Copyright 2004 Gambling Online Magazine  This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

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